Bruce Rauner, It’s Time For You To Come Clean

I, Brian S. Lambrecht, Chair of the DuPage Libertarians and the top volunteer signature collector in the state who personally testified at the State Board of Election this past month, am demanding that you, Bruce Rauner, come out and explain how your campaign can operate such disgusting and reprehensible tactics against another political party under your own nose without you being aware of it.

By now, we all know about the strong-arm tactics used by the GOP in their effort to throw us off the ballot. We are also aware of the armed private investigator that stalked petition circulators and visited the homes of registered voters who signed our petitions. Morrison Security, who was hired to provide the private investigators, is owned by Sean Morrison, who is also a Cook County Deputy Chairman, Palos Township Republican Committeeman and member of the Republican Party’s State Central Committee. The ties are pretty obvious to see.

Yet somehow, Mr. Rauner, you were never aware of this. After we turned in almost 43K signatures to the State Board of Elections on June 23rd, 2014, we were challenged for almost two straight weeks to defend them. When we survived that, you then went after petitioners themselves and the registered voters who signed our petitions.

You only denounced the activity after your camp had lost its battle with us at the Board of Elections and were called out by the tactics used, stating: “I’m appalled by the behavior I read about. I absolutely reject it and would never condone it. It’s terrible. I don’t know if it’s true, but I would never accept it. I’m outraged by what I’ve read.”

Your own spokesman Mike Schrimpf said that “Bruce wants as many people engaged in the political process as possible.” On that issue, we agree.

While the idea of you being oblivious to your own party’s actions is a bit hard to swallow, I am giving you the benefit of the doubt. If you stand by the things you’ve said, and you expect us to honestly believe that you are appalled by the actions that were undertaken to remove us from the ballot, then step forward and explain how this all happened unbeknownst to you. Further Mr. Rauner, I call on you to publicly join the Libertarian Party in demanding a full criminal investigation of this shameful conduct by law enforcement. If you are truly “outraged” and “appalled” as you say, then joining our call for a full investigation should be easy for you.

As you’ve stated many times, you are not a career politician; you are a businessman. Being successful in business requires building solid relationships on a foundation of trust. If you want to prove that you will “shake up” Springfield and clean up the corruption, then start with your own party and your own campaign. I am opening up to you and willing to listen.

You should be forthcoming with a clear explanation of how this has happened. You owe an explanation to us, to the citizens and voters of Illinois and to anyone who ever wants to get involved in the political process anywhere in America.